Eurotunnel fury as ferries ban looks set to go ahead

Eurotunnel today slammed the Competition Commission’s “incomprehensible” decision to bar the Channel Tunnel operator from running ferries on the Dover to Calais route, after the watchdog provisionally ruled it does have the power to introduce the ban.

Eurotunnel set up MyFerryLink after buying three of collapsed operator SeaFrance’s four vessels for €65 million (£54 million) in 2012. Last June, the commission said it would force Eurotunnel to close down the business, but the continental trains firm won an appeal of that decision. Since January, the commission has been musing whether it has jurisdiction over Eurotunnel’s purchase of SeaFrance’s assets.

Today Alasdair Smith, commission deputy chairman, said the deal was a takeover and “it would have faced a much longer, more expensive and riskier process to get the service up and running if it had tried to buy alternative assets in the market”. The final verdict will be published in May.

Eurotunnel said the decision was “completely contradictory to that expressed previously by the French competition authorities” and said MyFerryLink had not negatively affected the market.